iBookstore promo codes a no-show for e-publishers

I send review copy EPUBs by email and they are a modified version that has a subtle for review only watermark as well as useful background information that might be helpful to a reviewer. Promo codes would be cool and all but unless you are doing high volume emailing works fine.

I can't sell my own book on iBookstore in Japan, for example, due to distribution rights! Huh? I want to distribute it. It's all my own work. But Apple are stuck. The iBookstore is a great idea but is being stifled by old firms and traditional practices. Customer is king. .. only if he play to our rules. I feel like 'customer is puppet' here in Japan.
:-/

I had a free redeem code from Starbucks UK two weeks ago for an iBookstore book. Maybe this is an US licensing issue. Same with the paid subscription limitation in Newsstand. In the UK there are more than two titles with free subscriptions.

If I bought a book (especially something RPG or wargame sourcebook based) and it came with an iBook redemption code, I would be a happy bunny indeed. I like having things on my shelf, but I also like the convenience of having this stuff on my iPad.

As it stands now, I'm pirating PDF's of stuff I want to take with me on the go. I may own the original book, but I'm still being sneaky.

Promo codes for books would be amazing for the general public. Almost every new movie that's sold on disc comes with some sort of digital copy, why not with books too? I like having a book collection and showing it off in my home. But it's also much easier to search a digital book and have it with you all the time. And it's practically impossible to have an author sign a digital copy.

Kinda pointless, isn't it? The publishers already had to create the EPUB or AZW file for iBookstore or Kindle; why not just send that to reviewers? Presumably you can trust reviewers not to give away their copy, so the DRM would be less important... and it'd be easy enough to "personalize" the file in some way ("review copy for John Doe"). Ad-hoc distribution of iOS apps is much more difficult - but ebooks don't share that same difficulty. For that matter, maybe publishers should get with the times and set up their own ebook portal for reviewers that they work with frequently. Log in, download books in whatever format you prefer, and review away. That might not be practical for a self-publisher with one or two titles... but just sending out the ebook file shouldn't be a big burden for smaller self-publishers. Frankly, it'd be easier to e-mail an EPUB or AZW file than to go through the rigamarole of purchasing a gift card or generating a promo code and then e-mailing that.

IBook hasn't been much of a success, for several reasons

* The selection in other stores, like Kindle, is many times larger.
* When I buy a book on the kindle store, I can read on my kindle, my ipad, my iphone, my macbook, imac and on the web. If I had an Android phone or a Windows PC, I could read it there too. IBook is iphone/ipad only. Not even my Macs.
* Vendor lock-in